Also, how did this "why" come out in Actual Play? (as in, what about your favorite setting comes out in actually playing the game).

Give me your opinions P&PG peeps!!!

outrider

10-07-2009, 10:11 PM

for me my favorite setting is Bablyon 5. I havent played the game system that is based on it. My traveller setting has bits and pieces from that system.

cliff

10-07-2009, 10:47 PM

GURPS Reign of Steel. I love a good resistance game, I loved the future bits of the early Terminator movies, and I love post-apocalypse. It's the perfect worldbook for me, and I really respect Pulver's work.

Skunkape

10-08-2009, 07:15 AM

I prefer my own campaign world as far as a setting is concerned. That way, I can use ideas from other worlds, for instance, the main method of interstellar travel is based on the Bablyon 5 universe.

I use the Johnny Cab from Total Recall. I've used the Xenomorph from Alien series.

I've gotten ideas for the general government set up from Traveller 2300 and quite a bit of my time-line comes from the Gamma World campaign time-line pre-apocalypse.

I've never really been one to completely like someone else's campaign setting, so I mix and match to make my own.

Inquisitor Tremayne

10-08-2009, 11:52 AM

Star wars hands down!

Dytrrnikl

10-08-2009, 02:40 PM

This is actually a tough question for me. Ever since Star Wars in '77, there have been so many different settings for Sci-Fi, that picking one that stands out as a favorite is kind of a tough deal for me. No one setting has kept my interest to classify it as my all time favorite, so the best I can do is give you the three that I've consistently returned time and time again. These are presented in the order that they popped into my brain, not which one I think is best.

Doctor Who - every regeneration except for the damned made for TV movie where Eric Roberts played the Maste- PUTZ!! Granted the special effects have always been cheesy and the series itself has had more hokey moments to it, than serious. The idea of being able to travel through time and space would be phenomenal. To see events that have actually occurred first hand and not simply get the 'victors' perspective. Other sci-fi shows and settings have done time travel, but only as a episodic add-in, not as the basis for the whole setting.

I was running a d20 Modern campaign that was a homage to Doctor Who in that the group would travel through time, with a touch of the show Sliders for a bit of flavor.

Shadowrun - Now, I'm not saying that the people that brought us that game are inadvertant prophets like the Buggles were with there 1979 hit "Video Killed the Radio Star", but the setting does seem to have a much more realistic and grounded approach to Sci-Fi, with mega-corps running things, and governments falling apart, and things in general just being pretty harsh and gritty. The whole meta-human, magic angle is a nice touch to help you step outside of your skull.

Anytime I play sci-fi now, I incorporate the Shadowrun Matrix set-up for computer work and rigging for vehicle control. Star Wars lends itself well to the vehicle aspect of things, but not so well to the Computer part.

Andromeda - Ok, so shoot me for enjoying a Kevin Sorbo series. At the time I thought there were a lot of novel ideas, a race of genetically enhanced and selectively bred beings with a culture based upon the teaching of Nietzche, the magog swarm, slipstream drive, AI controlled warships (not original, but nice to see anyway).

Mainly it's the toys that get incoporated into my games - such as the Commonwealth Forcelance. However, various other elements influenced my Aurora Campaign setting, some blatantly ripped off - Jovians (Nietzchians), Arti-mans (AI's ala Andromeda, but free-willed), Helions (solar scientist that figured out how to transform themselves into Helium based life forms, allowing them to live on the Sun - the Tribute to Trance), Kypurians (social malcontents from Earth's societies banished to the far depths of the Solar System beyond Pluto to the Planetoid jokingly dubbed Xena, long forgotten, and seeking to destroy the descendents of those who cast them away from there ancestral home -Magogish).

There are others that have influenced me in some way or another, but none so much as those three.

CarlZog

10-13-2009, 06:58 PM

I'm a huge fan of Alternity's Star Drive setting.

It's a wide open space opera setting with a real good future history behind it that is capable of generating a wealth of adventure ideas. Although it is occasionally maligned as "generic", the more you get into it, the more great nuggets you find. It is extremely gritty with a frontier mentality, but it can also be very political. The major institutions are constantly vying for power in the frontier section of space that makes up most of the setting detail.

The four major non-human PC races are logically integrated into the setting and its history. Each has unique talents to bring to a PC group and the potential for good backstories around which to weave your adventure plot hooks.

I also really like Alternity's mechanics. It's a modular system that allows you to easily increase or reduce crunchy detail on the fly. It can extremely realistically deadly or swashbuckingly cinematic.

It's extremely skill-based, with mechanics for dramatic, complex skill checks, and varying levels of success. There is a loose framework of class/levels, but mostly the ability to be whoever you want.

Although it's all been out of print since about 2000, a very active fan community continued to create some really good material for it for a long time.

Check it out. You can usually find cheap copies of the Star Drive campaign setting and core Alternity books on ebay. I believe pdfs are still available online too.

Carl

MortonStromgal

10-16-2009, 01:10 PM

Shadowrun, I like cyberpunk alot and I like the old version of the combat mechanics

Lucifer_Draconus

10-25-2009, 12:06 PM

Star Wars.. I grew up with the movies n' such. I'll never tire of the setting. Just if I can find people willing to play a Spacemaster conversion or Saga with out all the evil miniature/tactical combat & movement rules.

Slipstream

10-26-2009, 12:34 AM

It has to go to Star Wars. Until this year, I was done with it shortly after Episode III released as I just felt like I was burnt out after that. But playing Saga this past year brought back new life in it for me. I realized that I never really cared for Jedi and the Force. What Star Wars was for me was the dogfights in ships, the technology, the epic ground combat.

Had Firefly went a few more seasons and expanded its world for us, I think I might of said that. But I love them both for those same reasons. Flying across the 'Verse and making ends meet.

WhiskeyFur

10-26-2009, 08:25 PM

Stargate SG1, up until the ori. Then I wasn't too keen on it.

There's a sense of discovery, of finding something that no one on earth has ever seen before, and yet the characters arn't that far different from joe off of the street. That makes it easy to imagine the absolute wonder of finding some of those things.

Imagine you yourself, coming across the stargate, of knowing that all of history was wrong? Or coming across devices that could control the weather, of finding other races, or trying to discover it all while not trying to be discovered yourself by this race of parasites that could squash you like a bug?

SG Atlantis I liked, still need to finish watching those.

SG Universe, at first I thought it was going to be a rehash of Battlestar Galactica (I HATED what they did the second time around), but so far it seems to be decent. The last episode I saw (Light) was a surprise, I'll say that. I might borrow some of those ideas for other games.

Skygalleons

10-28-2009, 11:12 AM

While I do love the Star Wars setting, my current favorite is Firefly/Serenity.

The thing that drew me to the setting was the sparkling interaction between the characters on the series. Their interplay was brilliant and it really brought the 'Verse to life for me.

I like the low tech science fiction aspect in that super tech isn't going to save the day with most of the technology not being all that beyond what we have today.

In addition, the 'frontier' like aspect of the 'Verse allows for an extremely wide array of settings from the high tech Core worlds to the old west Rim. I find the Firefly setting wonderful.

My campaign is very new, but the rough and tumble nature of the show has been gamed out nicely already. The darker aspects of the totalitarian Alliance, the amorality of Blue Sun, and the mindless terror of the Reavers have yet to be touched, but are waiting just off stage and I can't wait!

iceage

10-29-2009, 09:13 PM

Must say Space Above & Beyond. Really loved their universe. It had Androids, Synthetic Humans, and war with some alien race.

The Riddick Universe - Would love to see an RPG based on the Chronicles of Riddick.

Eryiedes

11-14-2009, 04:49 AM

It's a tie for me between Farscape, Star Wars, Battletech and TSR's Star Frontiers
I imagine if I had quit drinking an hour ago (when I should have in the first place) those answers would have been totally different.

Peace & Light

Webhead

11-14-2009, 12:38 PM

Star Wars.

There are some very interesting sci-fi settings out there but Star Wars is my bread-and-butter.